Exploring the Justifications for Selecting a Drop Landing Task to Assess Injury Biomechanics: A Narrative Review and Analysis of Landings Performed by Female Netball Players

Do the landing mechanics of experienced netball players differ from those of trained athletes competing in sports that do not require frequent landings?

“…The motion capture system tracked the location of thirty 10 mm retroreflective markers that were placed in standard locations on anatomical landmarks of the torso, pelvis, thighs, shanks and shoes, with rigid clusters attached bilaterally to the lateral mid shank and thigh. 18,19 The jump landing task required participants to perform a countermovement jump from the ground to grab a netball that was suspended from the ceiling on a cord with a detachable hookand-loop strap and then land on two feet. 18 In all trials the ball was positioned at 85% of the participant's maximum 'jump and reach' height as determined using a Vertec jump test.…”

“…18,19 The jump landing task required participants to perform a countermovement jump from the ground to grab a netball that was suspended from the ceiling on a cord with a detachable hookand-loop strap and then land on two feet. 18 In all trials the ball was positioned at 85% of the participant's maximum 'jump and reach' height as determined using a Vertec jump test. However, on random trials the ball was raised rapidly to 100% maximum jump and reach height as the participant initiated her jump.…”

“…Participants were unaware when the ball would increase in height, and therefore were challenged to perform every jump with maximal effort. We have used this task previously, 18 with it being designed to incorporate key task constraints representative of a netball landing scenario. Trials where both feet did not land entirely on the force platforms were excluded.…”

Knee Kinematics During Landing: Is It Really a Predictor of Acute Noncontact Knee Injuries in Athletes? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…In this regard, a recent review affirmed that the drop-landing task may facilitate a lack of control in the center of mass height, resulting in biomechanical asymmetries between both lower limbs. 4 Owing to this limitation in the drop-jump task, authors of selected studies evaluated different kinematic and kinetic variables from the same test. Therefore, high variability was observed regarding the biomechanical variables that every study extracted from this test.…”

An Investigation of Differences in Lower Extremity Biomechanics During Single-Leg Landing From Height Using Bionic Shoes and Normal Shoes

“…Then, all participants familiarized themselves with the experimental environment and practiced a drop landing task until they were familiar with test movements. According to previous studies, most subjects selected 30-40 cm as drop landing heights (Mason et al, 2017;Collings et al, 2019). We also consider that this height can effectively detect the differences between bionic shoes and minimize the damage to subjects caused by repeated landing experiments.…”